


Quiet Meetings in Skyhold.

by Earl Grey Warden (cuemusic)



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 16:57:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7765906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuemusic/pseuds/Earl%20Grey%20Warden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan thoughts, Hawke speaks with Cole about Anders, Solas takes Hawke on a trip, Solas thoughts. My Lavellan's name is Lore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Meetings in Skyhold.

\--

_Lore Lavellan. Lady Lavellan. Lady Inquisitor. The Inquisitor. The Herald. Andraste's Herald. Herald of Andraste._

_...Vhenan._

Lore shook her head and ran her fingers over the delicate purple flesh that had settled beneath her eyes. She'd gained a lot of names, since leaving her clan. His was the only one that she would have recognized, before all of this.

_Before the Inquisition. Before The Inquisitor._

She shook her head again, quicker this time, and took in her surroundings. Despite possessing a grand desk in the largest and highest room in Skyhold – Lore found she did most work at an ancient desk, deep beneath the ground…in a chamber slightly smaller than her closet. Unlike the fine Antivan desk Josephine had procured for her, this desk’s wood was warped and uneven – effectively curling the writing of any notes she tried taking. She'd move her parchment, but the unchecked candle wax had soldered it to the wood. She'd chip off the wax, but then she'd have wax under her nails.

 _Just as well._ She thought warily – leaning back in the room’s creaking, moth eaten chair.

Lore never could have anticipated the loneliness. The stillness that accompanied being “The one” – being absolutely untouchable – _having_ to be untouchable. For _them._

She looked at her hand as best she was able. As the Inquisitor, she had the opportunity to have and be nearly anything she wanted – anything besides whatever or whoever she had been before.

\--

“So…Cole – you are, _were_ , a spirit?”

It was the next morning, and Hawke was breakfasting at the tavern. Later she would meet the rest of the Inquisition – but Varric had tipped her off that a private conversation with Cole might be of interest to her.

The idea of Cole was quite fascinating, from a Mage perspective. But Hawke wanted more than that.

She offered to boy a steaming cup of chocolate – even though she was warned he'd reject it. Maybe she just wanted an excuse to have some herself.

“It’s okay. You can have it.” The voice emerged a bit like a song from beneath a brim of a floppy hat. Hawke could barely see the boy’s eyes – and she had a peculiar suspicion that, for Cole, being seen was almost always a conscience decision.

“Right…you don't eat _or_ drink, do you?” Hawke smiled nervously and brought the mug closer to herself instead. She chuckled awkwardly, and stared into the drink in front of her. “I knew that, of course…not sure why I still made a cup.” Hawke brought the mug to her lips, when the boy started speaking quickly – almost as though the words spilled out of him without control…

“ _Biting cold. Frosted windows. Fingers and toes are the first to go. But Father knew a trick. Infused warmth with something more – spun cream into lightning before pouring it back again… sprinkled entire concoction with particulars of energy. Donated a barrel to the chantry. People were suspect from the start, but the whispers transform into smiles as Templar and Revered Mother take a mug themselves. Everyone kept their fingers and toes that winter. And every winter. Until…”_

Hawke coughed on her hot chocolate, interrupting the surreal experience of having her thoughts read out to her. The boy did not seemed perturbed, and spoke again once Hawke's coughing had died down.

“You _want_ to remember. It’s okay. They _are_ good memories, no matter what came after.” His voice was normal, this time. Or at least – normal for him. Hawke swallowed.

“I…thank you.” Hawke stared at the table, unsure of what would come next.

Cole nodded. “I like your father. He helped people. Like you.”

Hawke met eyes with the boy again…although she was not sure if he was truly making eye contact back.

“He…yes, he did. Can you…tell all that, just from me?”

“People's thoughts about one another touch each other…shared pages of a book…separated from being viewed at once, but not separated from each other. More thoughts, more pages. Your father thought of you a lot. I see it from there…whirling in the corners of your eye…his tug, his influence. Always a bit of him, in your decisions.”

Hawke nodded again. “I…like the way you see things, Cole.”

The boy looked puzzled. “I have no other way of seeing…”

Hawke watched the human spirit trace the grain of the wood, his eyes tracking his own fingers’ movement with rapt attention. She wondered how to broach the subject weighing on her mind and soul.

“Anders…” Cole stopped whatever it is he was doing, and looked toward Hawke again.

Apparently wondering had been enough. Cole’s speech began to pour out, as it had before – each word providing the momentum for the next. There was a certain urgency to it

“ _Why did she stay…Andraste how could you let her stay...? Destruction. Death. Darkness. Demon - we're a demon. Her eyes. Watching me…waiting for me. She is broken, and doesn't want to be whole again until I can be too. So she holds my arm at night…grasps my hand the same way she use to – squeezes it, so determined to bring me back. But...can I return from this?_ Maker _…why am I even still alive?_ ”

Hawke had placed her hand on her chest without realizing it. The words…they were a fist wrapped around her heart. She recognized them so quickly. She paused her thoughts to catch her breath, and marvel at the anomaly in front of her. A human spirit. Quite different from one combining with the other. Anders words echoed in her mind… _Spirits of Compassion. Fortitude, Justice._ Maker’s breath. _Justice._

Cole cocked his head, hearing her. He spoke again.

“ _Mage…hurting. Always hurting. Questions, all the time. Remembers light…all the time._ No _. It is a human peculiarity – to you, it does not matter. It_ cannot _matter. The darkness…it is halted. Our purpose…it is fulfilled. And yet…do you not also ache…? Why? If…if you truly have no guilt over what was done to the chantry…then is it perhaps what was done to the Mage that haunts you? Not what Justice demanded of Kirkwall…but what Justice demanded of your friend. Of Anders._ ”

Hawke glared downward…brow twitching in thought. She spoke to Cole without looking at him.

“Cole…what do you see… _ahead_ , for Anders? Can…can I get him back again? Can he heal?”

The boy fidgeted uncomfortably.

“ _Blondie isn’t_ all _bad. Just another haphazard soul messed up by good intentions. Hope the Kid sees it. Maker knows it isn’t easy…_ ”

Hawke’s expression softened, and she smiled up at Cole, speaking gently.

“I asked for _your_ thoughts, not Varric’s…but thank you. His words…mean a great deal to me. As you probably know.”

Cole nodded a fraction. He spoke again.

“I think it learned what I learned…learned what it was, learned what it was really doing. He wants things to be simple again, like in the fade – but nothing will ever be simple again. Sometimes he regrets the village. But he had to help. He is learning. The poisoned song was very bad for him. _Not right, not the same._ It scared him. Confusing. Anders...he usually knows. He wants to help people. Wants to help mages, but not just mages. Anyone. Everyone. He doesn't let the hurt spread. _Can’t be like them…can't be like the others. Diverting their gaze from Templar bruising…ignoring the quiet sobbing of a Mage the morning after being taken. No…never like them._ He is good. But…he also… _something dark, something ruined. Swallowed the poison…inside, crawling, fighting Justice for control…for the right to define purpose…two forces, neither one of them me. Who am I now? An abomination? An imminent ghoul? Corypheus spoke to both parts…agitating the taint and call of the old Gods…mocking Justice’s longing for the fade. What does Justice hear that I cannot? Oh Maker…How could I have been so selfish… with her. Love…I'm so sorry._ He's…like me, in a lot of ways. Justice and Anders together…mistaking a demon’s want for urgency, for passion. They thought…what I thought. Or something like it. They were wrong. I was wrong.”

Hawked stared forward in melancholy, letting the words settle – not sure what they meant, if anything.

“ _Indeed_ , Cole. But let us not confuse what our friend seeks in raw thoughts and emotion. She likely has specific questions, as well.”

The voice was resoundingly proud and wise…if a little too much of both. Hawke jumped and turned.

An elf…taller than most, and completely bald. He wore a jaw bone tied around his neck. He struck Hawke as Dalish…yet he bore no vallaslin. His bone structure was pristinely elven…like a Dalish statue. Hawke added these facts up promptly, and bowed her head in greeting.

\------

“You must be Solas. I…wasn't sure I'd have the pleasure.”

Solas bowed back, and hovered near the bar. Hawke turned for Cole’s reaction, but the spirit had vanished.

“Well…that _is_ quite disconcerting.”

“Ah, yes. Count yourself lucky he did not take your memory of the morning with him…strange. He must have thought it was important for you to keep.”

“I guess so…”

Solas hovered a half second longer, while Hawke stacked her dishes, and downed the rest of her hot chocolate…after icing away the hot for the sake of her tongue. Once finished, she stood – looking toward Solas expectantly.

“Care for a walk, Champion? The fresh air would do us both good, I'm sure.”

She nodded, her mind still stunned from Cole’s presence.

Hawke blinked a couple times in succession, rubbing the salt from her eyes. She looked across the shore, and her soul welled in bittersweet recognition.

“The Storm Coast…it is…so tragically beautiful, isn't it?”

Solas nodded in agreement, his arms behind his back.

“Of the places I know, this is the one closest to Kirkwall. I thought you might know it.”

Thunder echoed. Looking across the water she squinted, trying to make out the silhouettes of ships. But of course, all she saw was the city. Hawke spoke softly, as though the sound of her voice might be enough to unravel time and space around her..

~~\------~~

“You know, this is where my parents first lived together. In a docked ship…somewhere near Apostate's Landing. Apt enough a place as any.” Hawke squatted near a blood lotus, dipping her hand beneath the water to feel the softness of the petals. She stood up again, feeling her hair blow backward with the ocean wind. “In fact, I may have been born in sight of this very shore.”

“Your parents fled Kirkwall for you?” Solas asked, evenly.

Hawke was placing careful steps onto a narrow line of rocks back to sea. She lost her footing at the question – and Solas flinched once before realizing she had already formed a protective orb of light around herself. He turned on his heel, motioning for Hawke to follow him.

She held onto a tree, not minding the grass which reached her waist.

“Yes…I was the force that bound them…what undid the established…a circle Mage, a betrothed noble’s daughter. Before me it was inevitably tragic. After…well, we didn't see true tragedy for two decades. Then of course saw it for a whole decade…but I am blathering, aren't I?”  Hawke look behind toward Solas, who was watching pensively.

He moved past her deprecation smoothly.

“Besides your parents, why does this place inspire such reflection?”

Hawke was toying with the knob to the cabin now…the door squeaking open as if to answer.

“Well…Anders stayed here, too. His last stop before coming to Kirkwall. Fleeing the wardens, after…” Her voice trailed off. Hawke sighed and moved across the room, pulling out the chair to the desk, but not daring to sit in it…opting instead to glare at the emptiness in puzzlement.

“He stayed here, with the spirit? With Justice?” Solas was quite curious about this.

Hawke's frame tensed.

“I am so tired of people throwing that word around. Justice is about giving _good people_ what is fair, what they deserve. It is _never_ about punishing the forces which took it away. You cannot _take_ to _give_.”

Hawke shook her head in frustration, as she stooped to survey the window overlooking the landscape below. She winced.

“Tell me Anders…could you have picked location _more_ quintessentially moody?”

Anders brought his head up from the desk – he'd dozed off at the window a couple hours ago. Warily he smiled as Hawke pulled her own chair across the room to be next to his. She rested her head on his shoulder, while he mused in consideration.

“Well…I suppose we could have gone and…stayed in a _cave_ on the Storm Coast, rather than a cabin. _That_ would have been moodier…”

Hawke burrowed her face into his pauldrons and shook it once in response, before looking up at him. Anders smiled gently and wrapped an arm around her. For a few quiet moments, they watched the rain and lightning. Noble was asleep on a rug near the fire. He whined in his sleep, now and then, after particularly big cracks of thunder. Hawke sighed sympathetically. “Poor puppy…”

Hawke closed her eyes just as Anders began to chuckle at her mabari's unlikely phobia. She smiled at the sound.

\------

Solas watched in fascination as Hawke nodded off in her own dream. Once fully unconscience, the cabin scene melted away – revealing Hawke asleep in her bed at Skyhold. Alone. Carefully, Solas closed the door to the guest room.

Back in the rotunda, he paced erratically, wondering why what he'd seen was bothering him so. It wasn't a matter of privacy… He suspected that the scene was intimate – but he did not know either Hawke nor Anders well enough to be sure. And besides, he overstepped that boundary comfortably and regularly, _especially_ with strangers in dreams.

 _No_ …this feeling was…envy? Really? _Why…_ Solas stopped pacing, closing his eyes in concentration.

It is true that he only became uncomfortable with the dream once the human known as Anders materialized. And _Yes_ – he knew love and companionship – similar to what he saw between the two humans – was something he wanted more than anything else. But Solas witnessed such purity regularly in the fade…and although desirable in its way, Hawke’s relationship with Anders had far too many strings attached to truly be _enviable_ …especially when compared to uncomplicated love he’d watched unfold time and time again, elsewhere in the fade.

No…Solas didn't think he was jealous of what the Champion _had_ in her dream.

 _If not love, then what?_ He thought back. _When had Anders appeared_...It was after Solas had asked Hawke about the spirit of Justice. Anders’ possession, it seemed, was tremendously difficult for the Champion to dissect in unconscience thought. _So painful, in fact, that she managed to take back the reins of control…preferring to do that than let your questions continue in that direction_.

 _So_ if he wasn't jealous of what she _had_ …could he be jealous of what she'd _made_?

Solas opened his eyes in realization. _That was it_ …her reconstruction. He was jealous of _that_ …of how easily the Champion could construct a world that she wanted. Hawke had been given a location full of – at most – bittersweet half-memories. Had been questioned about difficult aspects of her past and present. And yet, she still managed to carve out a cranny of bliss for herself…Hawke found a hideaway of happiness without having to uproot reality’s underlying foundation.

Solas leaned over his desk, hands apart from each other, head hanging down in defeat.

How had he not anticipated the loneliness.


End file.
